BERU Sensors: Innovative, integrative, individual
They may be small yet they have a vital role to play: Sensors are the sensory organs in state-of-the-art vehicles, and they are here to stay. For almost 30 years now BERU has been providing its development partners in the automobile industry and its systems suppliers with high-performance and reliable system solutions from a single source.
(Ludwigsburg, 25th January 2008) Sensors are the data hunters and gatherers in contemporary vehicles. They perform extremely-accurate measurements, convert variable input values into electrical signals and send the complicated control and regulation functions data to exactly where it is needed: To the control units for state-of-the-art engine management, safety and comfort systems. Increasingly more stringent exhaust gas limit values and ever increasing demands in terms of safety, accident protection and driving pleasure mean that these sensitive components are also being used more and more. In a vehicle's drive train alone there are between 20 and 30 sensors with various duties. A car has a total of roughly 100 such extremely accu-rate sensory organs on board.
Sensors also measure, control and regulate temperatures, speeds, angles or positions. To be able to perform these versatile tasks with the utmost of precision, BERU sensors are equipped with the most varied of technologies – such as, for example, inductive technology, Hall effect or thermistor technology. The BERU product range of classical sensors encompasses "detectors" for media (biodiesel, water) as well as speed sensors for non-contact measurement of rotational movement according to the inductive sensor or Hall sensor measuring principle. They are also used on gear wheels or for measuring the angles of camshafts or crankshafts.
The latest BERU development in this segment is a directional-control sensor for a major American automotive supplier. The BERU sensor is scheduled to go into series production in the spring of 2008, and it is based on a magneto-static principle. It measures the position of the actuators, which are responsible in a turbocharger for adjusting the turbine blades to enable the boost pressure to be variably regulated. Additional directional-control sensors from BERU are also installed in clutch, brake and gear shifting systems.
BERU sensors: Innovative variety
In the USA a form of vehicle-specific emissions trading can be conducted for vehicle radiators with a coated radiator network for active air cleaning. This special radiator coating converts ground-level ozone into oxygen. This is contingent on the existence and perfect operation of the radiator in the vehicle at all times. This is assured by yet another new BERU development: The radiator identification sensor (RIS). It should help to make it impossible to dismantle a radiator with catalytic coating or to replace a radiator that is not coated, and thus also prevent the RIS from being extensively cut out of the radiator and then being mounted somewhere remote from it. Audi, BMW and Mercedes-Benz are already using the BERU RIS sensor in series
production. Production start-ups at other car makers are also in the pipeline.
The current BERU product range has been augmented by numerous sensors for special applications. This also includes:
- piezo-resistive sensors such as in the BERU pressure sensor glow plug (PSG) for determining the pressure as it changes quickly and cyclically in the engine combustion chamber or
- the closed BERU high temperature sensor (HTS) in the exhaust gas recirculation systems as well as for monitoring diesel particulate filters and DeNOx catalytic converters.
BERU Sensors: Proficiency from a single source
BERU sensor technology solutions are tailor-made exactly to suit their use in the vehicle, and they are installed by many well-known vehicle manufacturers. BERU provides its customers with comprehensive services from a single source. "We understand our role to be that of a development partner to the international automobile industry and other automotive suppliers", explained Dipl. Phys.-Ing. Arno Marto, Head of Sensor Development at BERU AG, Ludwigsburg. "Here, our customers benefit from our roughly 30-years of experience in the sensor technology sector, and our tremendous production know-how in the areas of metal processing and plastics engineering."
Approximately 15 BERU employees alone are involved in sensor de-velopment at the main plant in Ludwigsburg. The required sensory technology software is created at BERU Electronics in Bretten. BERU has recourse to a global joint production for its extremely flexible sensor production – including at sites in Germany and Hungary, as well as a fully-automated sensor assembly line at BERU Electronics in the Irish town of Tralee.
Increasing customer demands based on a quality-related expansion of the testing conducted on innovative sensor technology products and systems coupled with a simultaneous reduction in development times, are something that BERU has met, in particular with its Re-search and Development Center (R&D) based in Ludwigsburg. “We can use our EMC hall there to check sensor technology applications with regard to their electromagnetic compatibility in a vehicle environment”, was one of the site advantages mentioned by sensor-technology developer Marto. We also have the technology available at the R&D Center in special sensor laboratories to enable us to perform structure and element analyses, and we can also use a scanning electron microscope to take a high resolution view of materials. Marto: "BERU acts as a highly proficient full-service provider to its partners. From the development and selection of material via high-performance prototype manufacturing up to 100-percent testing on dedicated test benches, and the EMC specification at the BERU R&D Center."
